Line and wash flowers

Hello everyone, again with something just for myself. This is a watercolour painting inspired by Joanne Boom Thomas, I love her work with watercolour and Brushos and find myself watching her tutorials more and more. I’ll include a link at the bottom of the page. 

I’m afraid the light isn’t good and so the colours aren’t as bright as in real life. Working full time it dark by the time I get to play, but I hope it gives you an idea of what it looks like. The size is 18” x 30 so big for me.

I first sprinkled my Brushos in Ultramarine Emerald Green, while spritzing I covered my sketch to protect it from the colour. I then added clean water and worked wet in wet.

Love how the camera captured the water on the page. 

I laid down the pink first and once dry the blue. 

Once dry, I used blue acrylic ink and my dip pen, (yah I found one that works for me and I love it)and added some details, before the ink dried with a small brush and water I pulled the ink to fill in the negative space.

To finish and lighten it a little I added white gold highlights, unfortunately the artificial lights makes it look like blobs of white where as it’s quite subtle really

You can see how the colour is more yellow in the finished pics than in the start 

Hope you like it

Hugs Xxx

Link to Joanne

Challenge reminder

Morning everyone, today I have a little inspiration for you, to remind you of the colour theme currently running over at Rubber Dance.

The inspiration photo shows the beautiful colours

And my inspiration 

I am in love with this stamp from Rubber Dance 

You can also get free shipping if you spend over €15

With this code

DWFreeShip

Stay creative 

Hugs xx

New Challenge today!

Morning everyone today starts a new challenge at Rubber Dance and it's an easy one 'use your favourite Stamp'! Well I have so many gorgeous stamps that I love,  including those I designed myself,  but for today I chose one of my old crafty teammates Donna  We have found ourselves on 3 Design Teams together, over the last few years and so I'm proud to use one of her recent designs for Rubber Dance.

I love this cutie! Bonnie Bunny 

So I started fixing the stamp to the stamp platform and the sprinkled some Bistre in a Brown over the stamp and spritzed with water.

This gave the stamp a very arty look. Then using Mermaid Markers I filled in the grassy areas and the sky. I used the spray bottle first, all around the rabbit then the markers. I then spritzed and flicked the water, (Tim Holtz method) until my background was as arty looking as the rabbit. 

I then restamped with Stazon in Black to give the details 

I then added some grass and flowers 


It was then mounted onto the card and Sentiment added.

A simple but I think effective background and a beautiful stamp!

I hope you are inspired to play along, all the details are here

Don't forget you can get free shipping by using this code over €15

DWFreeShip.

Take care everyone 

Hugsxxx 

Garden Journal

Hello everyone today I'm over at Rubber Dance with a journal cover I made, here's a peep but all the details are over on the blog.

Don't forget you can get free shipping over €15 with this code 

DWFreeShip

Take care 

HugsXx

Altered Vintage bag

Hello everyone thank you so much for popping in. Today I'm sharing an altered bag I created for a swap I'm in on Facebook. I love these little challenges as when struggling with what to do, they really help me to focus. As soon as I heard the theme my mind went overboard. I wanted to create a vintage bag using patterned paper but wanted to create the pattern too. 

The bag started life white, but with a layer of Tea Stain Distress Ink - Ranger it became this colour. It was more yellow than I wanted but

Was stuck with it, so carried on.

I used the same colour on my first layer and once dry stamped the tiny flower from Beautiful You - Rubber Dance and the rose bud from

Blossoming Rose - Rubber Dance. I coloured both with Inktense Pencils - Derwent. 

The next layer was a doily on top of which I stuck another card layer, decorated with the larger bud from the rose set. I also used Vintage script also from Rubber Dance. More doily and then the final layer of a single rose. 

To finish I added some lace and string and then tied a tag to the handle, added some pearls and it was finished

All the stamps used are designed by me for Rubber Dance (except Vintage Script) and soon you will be able to purchase them from 

Handmade at Helen's 

Take care everyone 

Hugsxxx 

Today for Mixed Media Mag

Hello everyone thanks for stopping by! Today I'm over on blog of Mixed Media Mag, with a journal page using Gelatos. Below is a peep, but for full details pop over to the blog. 

I'll be back soon with a whole new project, so pop in and find out what I e been up too.

Take care 

Hugsx 

I can share my secret

Hello everyone, thanks for popping in. I can finally share a secret with you all, I've designed stamps for Rubber Bibi owner of Rubber Dance. How exciting is that! I am appsolutely thrilled to design for Bibi who has made a dream come true.

To introduce the stamps Bibi is offering a 20% discount which you can access here

So here they are :

 

    

   

          

here are a few samples

 
 

 

 

Over on the Rubber Dance blog you can find more samples as well as new stamps by some of Bibi's other designers

I do hope you like them, I know I will be playing with them for a good while 

Take care

Hugsxxx 

 

DecoArt Play

Hello everyone I'm back to share another journal page, using DecoArt products. I do love their spray mist as the colour dries permanently so you can build up loads of layers add drips etc without fear of making mud by contaminating the layer beneath.

I used the burlap page page of my journal - first layer white craft paste, lots of sprays and some media fluids rubbed on with my finger. Then one of Andy Skinners Stencil Fossil, with black craft Paste. On top of which I sprinkled aged Ochre embossing powder and heated until melted. This can take longer than normal as the paste is still wet. It does look though. I coloured the centre into an eye which is gave a little more interest. 

 

I do hope you like my rusty piece!

Take care 

Hugs xxx

 

Journal Page

Hello everyone, thanks for popping by. Today i'm so happy to share my second Guest Design piece for Rubber Dance stamps.

Here is a peep, but all the details are over on the blog. I'd love it if you popped over and left me some love.

 

Take care everyone 

Hugs xxx

 

Trying out Dina's 1oz pots of her Heavy Body Acrylic

Hello everyone, I hope you are enjoying your Saturday. I went for a walk to a waterfall but couldn't climb down to get behind it because of my knees but my hubby could, and he got some good shots. 

On our return I had a parcel with some of the new Media Line products designed by Dina Wakley for Ranger, so thought I'd have a play. I have a few photos of the process but when I started I had no idea what I was going to do, it just developed. 

 

Dina's Journal is lovely, it's full of mixed Media Paper which feels lovely and it's a nice size.

 

 

I also used her new brushes which I like far more than her long handle ones. Mixed up lots of colours for the first coat.

 

I knew what I wanted now, and so it started coming together.

 

Last look

 

 

I really enjoyed painting this, and what I liked about the smaller packaging is that the paint has a tip which you can you use to draw/paint with adding more interest than just brush strokes.

Thank you for popping in

Take care hugs xxx

 

It's nearly Easter!

Good morning everyone, I feel a bit like a bus in London, none come for a while, then they all turn up together lol. Lost? Let me explain, I haven't blogged for a while and now two posts in one weekend. Enough waffle and onto why I'm posting today. It's my first day as a Guest Designer for Rubber Dance.  Here is a peep of my project but you will have to pop over over there to see it fully and read all the details.

 

Bibi owner of Rubber Dance is kindly offering free postage worldwide with this code DWFreeShip, how cool is that! 

If you have not been before, do go checkout the shop, Rubber Dance  it's well worth a visit! 

Take care

Hugs

 

Rust Trio

Hello everyone, its new challenge time at Country View Crafts, and the lovely Evelyn chose the theme for us this month. It's one of my favourite, and I really enjoyed created my project. There are some fabulous inspiration from my teammates on the blog, I was blown away with all the gorgeous rustiness. As always, there is a £20 voucher to be won; so come on, whatever way you create rust, whether large or small, enter it into the challenge and £20 could be yours.

Here's my project a set of ATCs.

I used a couple of ways to create the rust, one was taught to me by Andy Skinner on one of his workshops, which you can see below. 

Each one was started off the same way, and even though I wanted them different, I wanted them to have  a common theme.

    

The rust on the items was created by simply painting them with Paper Rust, which is a brilliant medium which you can paint on paper to create a rusty look, but as you can see it's good on lots of surfaces.

 

Each one has several layers which adds to interest.

 

I hope these have inspired you to play along.

Take care hugsxxx